Psychology and Education

Think of the best teacher that you've ever had. Think about a lesson that sticks in your memory. What was it about that person or lesson that was so good? Did everyone else in the class think so too or were your views unique to you? Questions such as these are ones which educational psychologists try to answer, and will be ones that this unit focuses on.

The six sections...

Making use of your AS skills - Evaluating studies and theories...

It would be a shame to feel like all that time spent learning your 20 studies was wasted when you start A2, but some people will look at the specification and struggle to see the places where their skills will overlap. Luckily, there are many skills you will have learned for AS Level which will be crucial in A2 as well. These include:

Less important - Evaluating studies

You spent a lot of time doing this last year. Do you remember these terms (and could you spot where they occur in studies and use them correctly for evaluation)?

Validity (ecological, internal etc)

Reliability

Representative sample

Generalisability

There will be some studies that you need to know this year (though in less detail than in AS). Evaluating them could be useful in an essay and help you to make a bigger point. However, the most important overlap is next door...

More important - Evaluating THEORIES

Remember the annoying extra parts last year where, in addition to having to learn the studies you also had to learn about each of the five approaches? Well be glad you did, as this knowledge will be crucial to you this year.

Do you remember what is meant by, and how to use, the following terms?

Determinism

Reductionism

Ethnocentric bias

Objective

Quantifiable

These are terms that can be used to evaluate theories and you will be using them a lot this year.

Write out what they mean and some examples of where you might use them.

Extension

Sir Ken Robinson is a well known modern supporter of humanistic approaches to education. Here are two of his talks. They feature a number of ideas relevant to this unit: learning styles, student choice, motivation, multiple intelligences, creativity and others! Can you pick them all out?

Also, these talks are a great way of gaining a holistic understanding - of piecing together all of the sections we've done this year. You can see that they are not separate units, they are part of a big picture which connect together and make sense together.